Get EQUIPPED: Redemptively Address Taboo Topics

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Welcome to Get EQUIPPED! Here is how to be successful in completing this course.

Class Guidelines for groups taking this course together.

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Love people love people. Pretty simple!

Jesus is who we all need!

• Our Mission at Hope and Grace Global
• Our Objectives
• A Ministry of Reconciliation
• Becoming Educated Ambassadors
• Hope and Grace Partnership

• Common misconceptions
• The truth
• Romans 1: God's wrath 
• Romans 2: The guilty judging the guilty
• Romans 3: All have sinned
• Condemned or justified?
• Authentic testimonies
• 3 equal components of the course:
  • Reading prep
  • Teaching
  • Discussion

REDEEM THE STORY WITH YOUR GROUP!

God's Design

Session 2: Skillfully and Wonderfully Made

Listen to the audio from 13:42 to end or read the Prologue- Part 2 below.

Audio is verbally read from the material written below.

It is easy for us humans to think that the mess of this world due to mankind’s sin is too big for even God to fix, like He’s wringing His hands as though everything is out of His control. Yet we have His promise that He will redeem us. Not one of His promises has ever failed though we live in a fallen world and wallow in our own failures. 

That is why His creation and plan matters! The problem lies in our perception of Who God is. He is supreme and sovereign. He created us and knows our needs. Because He is our Creator, He makes the rules.

After He created everything else, Genesis 1:26-27 says, “Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So, God created mankind in his Own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.””

Because God created (Hebrew – “bara”) mankind, male and female, in His image, we know that God has perfect and complete male and female attributes. Adam

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You may use the terms, culture of life and culture of death, in relation to the way you envision things should be and the many evils of today’s society. The word, culture, has various definitions depending on the dictionary. Those who have lived in different countries or even different parts of the same country recognize the differences between their cultures through experience. The most common definition of culture is that it is reflected in art, architecture, literature, music, textiles, and dress and in what we produce and how we work. It is that and much more. The Cambridge dictionary defines culture as “the way of life of a particular people, esp. as shown in their ordinary behavior and habits, their attitudes toward each other, and their moral and religious beliefs.”  

Certainly, God’s intent from the beginning was His culture of life, and that intent includes our health and the care of our health by caring for our bodies and eating what He gave us for food, originally a vegetarian diet. 

There are certainly some extremely precarious situations in which we may feel that abortion is acceptable in God’s culture of life. But are those from just a worldly standpoint or does God feel the same way? Even many Christians believe what the world says because we have not thought of them considering His Word and His power available to us. Moreover, the fact remains in each situation, that abortion always takes the life of another human being, something we are strictly commanded not to do, other than self-defense when someone is maliciously threatening our own. Looking through Scripture, this fact cannot ever be discounted for followers of Christ.

Pastor John Bornschein of Calvary Fountain Valley in Colorado was saved from abortion because his mother, who had aborted her three previous babies, took a stand and gave birth to him even though his father pressured her to abort as he had with others. His father abandoned his mother when she chose life. 

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God’s very design for our bodies depicts His intention for their use. We are intricately woven together - body, soul, and spirit and created for His pleasure. Earthly manufacturers make some amazing products, but no human creation or design is made in the detailed image of its maker inside and out. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were all involved in our creation. We are fully human, yet as followers of Christ we partake of His divine nature which gives us everything we need for life and godliness. 

Pastor Kenneth Robertson, International Anglican Church, Colorado Springs, suggests that, “Historically, the church’s teaching on sexuality hinged on the word ‘chastity,’ not ‘purity.’ Purity can be an unhelpful concept because once it’s ‘spoiled,’ you can’t get it back. Chastity, on the other hand, is a virtue. It applies inside marriage as well as without.

What was God’s original intent for sex? Both marriage and sex were God’s idea and His design. God designed marriage as a picture of His relationship with His bride, the church. In the Old Testament, God uses numerous examples of the relationship of His chosen people to Himself as either faithful or unfaithful. He is a jealous God and will not endure His people going after false gods. He considered this prostitution. God committed His faithfulness and love as a husband to His people with full provision for all their needs. In return He expected faithfulness. (See Jeremiah 3:11-15) It is the same in New Testament times and still today. Ephesians 5 speaks of how He loves and cares for His church and that husbands should love and care for their wives in the same way. 

It is up to godly parents and the church to lead the way in this, to be the first watchers (Ezekiel 33), to warn our children and youth about impending disaster. How many of our kids are experimenting with sex that they learned about on the Internet, magazines, sex ed, or from their friends? How many have learned about it from the porn we have watched with them present? (You’ll learn the definition of pornography in Session 5) How involved are we in their lives to even know? Many of us are not involved enough. Instead, we just keep our fingers crossed hoping that our young people will get through without making the same mistakes that we made or worse. 

We must reflect on our own past sin in this area before trying to set the next generation straight. We must think through and repent of our own sinful choices and seek God’s healing from them. This involves taking an inventory of sexual sin in our lives and listing the consequences of those sins.  We wish to deny that these sins were very significant and want to leave the past in the past. Many of us are ashamed of our pasts or pretend that it wasn’t a big deal. However, just like rotten food in the refrigerator, if we don’t get it out and deal with it, then the past remains in the present for us and will most likely continue into the future with our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It is God’s promise! 

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We did not arrive by accident where we are with immorality in our nation or in the church. There has been a systematic agenda to wheedle away at morality, and unfortunately many Christians go with the flow. I

Pornography, child sexual abuse, sex-trafficking, and prostitution invade society regularly whether or not we are aware of them. Like abortion, they are evils that often feel too big for the church to overcome. I

Among young people today, gender has become a choice, not a creation of God. It has become cool and “normal” to be homosexual or bisexual. Transgenderism, that was rarely heard of thirty years ago, is also seen as normal, as though people have been choosing their gender from the beginning of time. Children are thrown into confusion instead of seeing themselves as being born a boy or girl as God designed them.

In class, we will cover several statistics on pornography use among Christians. This is also rarely addressed in churches. As with abortion, there is a significant amount of worldly sorrow about this subject.

We cannot continue to ignore the high number of sexually abused children. Sex-trafficking has become an increasingly common topic of conversation and action in the church, as well it should be. However, we must question why the church almost never addresses child molestation redemptively. 

Any sexual activity outside God-ordained sex inside the covenant of marriage between a man and woman is a perversion of His design and purpose. With that said, keep in mind that our culture is a powerful force in this area of our lives. Because of increasing rates of child sexual abuse and lack of healing and understanding of God’s design, it has become increasingly acceptable to embrace perversions of His design.

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In our reading for this week in the Memoirs book, we learn about Belinda’s tragic story of being pregnant with no support for choosing to give birth to her baby.

Abortion numbers are not dropping as some report them to be. More than half of all abortions in the United States are now chemical abortions and are increasingly prescribed via the internet and not reported.

The truth is the sin, which causes great shame, is only one important aspect of abortion. Abortion is also traumatic on multiple levels – physically, emotionally, spiritually, and relationally. Forgiveness of the sin does little to resolve that trauma. In addition, abortion involves the loss of a child which can cause grief throughout the remainder of life. The loss itself is traumatic because many people don’t expect to feel that so deeply over what they were told is just a clump of cells. We must recognize all three aspects – sin, trauma, and loss – and how they are interwoven to effectively understand it. 

The sin of abortion is especially complicated beyond other sins. It is the taking of life. Not only that, the mom and often the dad and the grandparents all participated in it in some manner. Even if the grandparents were not safe to tell about the pregnancy, they still played a role. When the church or just Christians talk about abortion, it is often described with the “m” word (murder) for which there feels no remedy for the guilty.

The death of any family member or loved one is a loss. Whether it is acknowledged or denied, the body and heart are affected.  Many women and men who have lost children to abortion don’t even realize they need to grieve. If they have been in denial about the life that was ended, they cannot grieve. If they recognize their need to grieve, many don’t feel they deserve to do so.

People usually only think about the violence to the child which ends in their death almost 100% of the time. Often, we get stuck on that part of abortion which is horrible enough in itself. Those who have never lost a child to abortion may believe that it is entirely inexcusable for a woman to “choose” abortion because we don’t understand that many women aren’t given support for any other “choice.” 

Jesus redeems far more than the sin! But how can anyone who suffers so immensely know this? No one should have to bear this burden alone, and that is why we, the church, need to shine the light of Jesus into this darkness, His blood shed that covers every sin, the lashes He received that heal our wounds. Jesus does not want His children to live in bondage.

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In our previous chapter, we barely touched on shame which is a feeling strongly associated with abortion trauma. Let us unpack it a little more because it is an important topic. 

We all know that abortion tragically and violently kills babies in the womb. That is no secret! We all want this to stop. But Satan’s first dirty secret he has been quite successful about keeping is the damage that abortion does to the living – moms, dads, grandparents, siblings of the lost child, abortion survivors, and anyone who is involved in someone else’s abortion.

Satan enters the scene of paradise and life. With his entrance, came the very specific beginning of the culture of death and the antithesis of every aspect of the culture of life. Satan set out to destroy humanity, all God’s image-bearers, ever since God’s creation of man. Satan did not waste a minute but introduced sin into the world with Adam and Eve, knowing that through sin comes spiritual, physical, emotional, mental, and relational death. This is where the curse began, not only for Satan himself but also for the entire human race. His intent from the beginning has been to steal the blessings God has freely given us, kill us off, and destroy our culture of life.

We were given a promise of terrible times in the last days, with a radical increase in sin. Unfortunately, this increase in sin includes us, the church, embracing and expanding upon the culture of death that Satan himself initiated. Our sinful attitudes and behaviors are the harbingers that usher the culture of death right into the church with us. We cannot blame Satan for our own choices. The devil did not make us do it! We need to take an inventory of these personal and congregational character traits that perpetuate the culture of death, then take a close look to determine how the gospel speaks to them.

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Each local church has some corporate choices to make just as individuals have choices. How we respond to the current status of the church regarding immorality, abortion, and the fallout is crucial.

Consequences of abortion on individuals and congregations due to the church’s silence is discussed.

With any sin, and especially abortion, it is easy to make excuses even though we say we are sorry. Even asking for God’s forgiveness is not godly sorrow if our hearts are still hard about it. Again, if we do not have any change of heart about it, then we are not seeing it through God’s eyes and recognizing what it cost Him. In the case of abortion, the sin also costs the lives of millions of His children. This is too much to bear!

We are looking for churches that are willing to reorganize their paradigm so that godly sorrow prevails, repentance is seen as the gift that it is, and healing from abortion and sexual trauma become as important as the sermons and worship and all their wonderful programs. We want to see churches that begin teaching God’s Design and the sanctity of human life and the human body from infants to adults.

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“Error indeed is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced more true than truth itself.” – Iranaeus of Lyons 

There are myths and misconceptions about abortion on both sides. We not only need to correct our own erroneous beliefs but also learn how to counter the opposition’s flawed arguments.

We have talked previously about what the Word says about abortion versus what the world says. Because an unborn baby is God’s creation, fully human, and is simply in a different stage of development than one that is born, it is murder to end his or her life. We also know there is forgiveness for those who confess and repent of this sin as there is with any other sin. Nevertheless, we know that the damage precipitated by abortion goes far beyond the sin and repentance level.

I must stress again the importance of being conscious of the millions of people within and outside the church who have chosen abortion in the past. We never know, at the outset of a conversation, if we are talking with someone who has been through that.

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Congratulations for reading through this manual and participating in the Get EQUIPPED class! 

I must first acknowledge our Creator God, without whom I would not have had neither the vision for this curriculum nor the gifts and skill to complete it. He never ceases to astound me with His amazing grace and glory shining through everything He does! This is, above all, His work, His idea from the beginning. 

The ABC’s of Bloodstained Allies, including those who are wounded or in crisis, help us better understand ourselves and others who need our encouragement.

Part of becoming a safe place for others to run includes listening well. Here are some thoughts on that to practice.

What is a SAFECHURCH™ as qualified under the SAFECHURCH™ Project?

We appreciate your participation in Get EQUIPPED. In order to make it as effective as possible, we need honest feedback. Please write your thoughts about each Chapter and Session as you go through this course.